Journalist: A book claiming that a new drug has dangerous side effects has recently been criticized by a prominent ph...

shunhe on April 2, 2020

Hi @shafieiava,

Thanks for the question! So answer choices (D) and (E) are very similar, but there’s subtle differences that make (D) the correct answer over (E). (D) is telling us that someone who makes a given argument who has personal reasons for doing it might still have legitimate, non biased reasons for making that argument. It’s like if the CEO of Tylenol told you to take Tylenol when you were sick. Yeah, he has a monetary incentive to say that, but he’s also right in that it’ll help you with your fever.

(E), on the other hand, says that if a critique doesn’t have legitimate reasons against an argument, it’s not necessarily because of the author’s personal biases—the journalist should be considering dismissing the claims for other reasons. So this is like a case in which someone says “donuts aren’t the best snack,” and the CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts says “Donuts are the best snack.” Looking at this statement, you might be tempted to say that you shouldn’t trust the statement because the CEO is biased. But there might be other independent reasons to not trust the statement: other snacks taste better, donuts aren’t healthy, etc. And this is the difference between the two. We can see immediately that (D) applies to the journalist’s argument, whereas (E) is irrelevant to the claims that the journalist is making, which are that the journalist can dismiss the doctor’s claims because of the doctors’ personal biases.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any further questions that you might have.

shafieiava on April 3, 2020

@shunhe The explanation you provided above is blank?

shunhe on April 6, 2020

That's odd, hopefully it works this time. You might need to update the app if it's not on the latest version from what another student said.

Hi @shafieiava,

Thanks for the question! So answer choices (D) and (E) are very similar, but there’s subtle differences that make (D) the correct answer over (E). (D) is telling us that someone who makes a given argument who has personal reasons for doing it might still have legitimate, non biased reasons for making that argument. It’s like if the CEO of Tylenol told you to take Tylenol when you were sick. Yeah, he has a monetary incentive to say that, but he’s also right in that it’ll help you with your fever.

(E), on the other hand, says that if a critique doesn’t have legitimate reasons against an argument, it’s not necessarily because of the author’s personal biases—the journalist should be considering dismissing the claims for other reasons. So this is like a case in which someone says “donuts aren’t the best snack,” and the CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts says “Donuts are the best snack.” Looking at this statement, you might be tempted to say that you shouldn’t trust the statement because the CEO is biased. But there might be other independent reasons to not trust the statement: other snacks taste better, donuts aren’t healthy, etc. And this is the difference between the two. We can see immediately that (D) applies to the journalist’s argument, whereas (E) is irrelevant to the claims that the journalist is making, which are that the journalist can dismiss the doctor’s claims because of the doctors’ personal biases.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any further questions that you might have.